Page 75 of These Immortal Truths
“Anna, Ican’t.” He kneels next to her, his expensive suit soaking up the blood puddling between the cobblestones as he pulls his belt loose and holds it out to her in offering. “You have to be my hands.”
Her eyes drop to the offered belt, hesitating only a moment before taking it and looping it around the boy’s leg.
There’s a bitterness on her tongue; feelings she knows better than to give words to. Khiran has told her, time and again, that he cannot intervene in mortal lives. He follows her from victim to victim, watching as her hands and sleeves grow dark with their blood, and Anna feels her chest tighten and her stomach sour.
She wishes he would have bent his rules, even just this once, if just for her.
That night when he helps her wash the blood from her skin, Anna says nothing of her shadowed thoughts. Instead, she buries them under touch and taste—lets herself drown in the feeling of skin sliding on skin with nothing but water between them. She goes to bed with damp hair and his arms wrapped securely around her waist and wakes to him gone; the pain of yesterday just one more terrible thing belonging to the past.
It’s nearly six months later when Anna sees it: a small foot trail peeking out from under the leaves. Framed by two magnificent budding cherry trees, it invites her in with a familiarity that nags her. She stops, brow creasing as she tries to place the feeling. “I don’t remember this trail.”
She has walked this path often, but she has no memory of it despite remembering all the others they’ve passed.
Khiran tugs her forward, his smile crooked. “Probably just a game trail,” he says, but Anna doesn’t miss the hint of tensionaround his eyes. “Come, you did promise to show me your favorite breakfast spot.”
Anna looks back at the path—feels something stirring in her gut—but licks her lips and nods. “Right, of course.”
Except, even as she walks away, she can still feel a pull. That night, as she tucks herself into the crook of Khiran’s arm and closes her eyes to sleep, it’s waiting for her—calling her by name in a voice that sounds so distantly familiar it takes Anna a few dream-filled moments to place it.
Eira.
Anna wakes, eyes staring up at the ceiling and heart drumming in her ears. She knows better than to believe it’s a coincidence. She turns and finds Khiran’s spot on the bed empty, the sheets cold.
Staring at the hollow imprint on the pillow, Anna knows she won’t be showing up to work today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after.
She gets up, gets dressed, and packs a bag. She doesn’t lock the door on her way out. Twenty minutes later, she stands in front of the trail—the morning breeze tussling her hair and whispering encouragements in her ear. Anna takes a deep, bracing breath, and steps onto the path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Regret is a knife, serrated and deep. He feels it with every step, every shift. The betrayal shining in her eyes—the hurt—is more painful than any blow.
THEMEADOW
SPRING1921
The trail is winding, each curve making her feel more turned around than the last. Anna doesn’t remember it feeling that way before—doesn’t remember it feeling so long. Then she notices the subtle change of trees and flora, birds flitting between the branches that belong on another continent all together, and knows she has traveled a much farther distance than she feels.
Then the trees thin away until the footpath opens up to a field in bloom.
Anna staggers—leaning against a tallalder.
It is the same cottage, the same meadow, where she lived so many centuries ago. Where Eira took her in and taught her the difference between living and surviving. The landscape is different, but she recognizes the echo of what it once was. The river runs wider, but the shape is the same. She’s almost certain the gnarled plum tree is the same she once plucked fruit from.
The cottage looks entirely unchanged.
It is an exact echo of her memory, down to the color of the thatched roof and the aged wood shutters. As she walks closer, she notices that even the stone lining the chimney seems untouched by the ravages of time.
At the door, Anna hesitates, hand hovering. It has been so long—she’s afraid of the person she’ll find on the other side. Afraid of how Eira may have changed; how she may have stayed the same. They hadn’t left each other on the best of terms. Anna had been too hurt and too heartbroken to give her the goodbye she deserved. She regrets that, now.
Anna pulls a bracing breath into her lungs, lifts her chin with a confidence she doesn’t really feel, and raps her knuckles on the painted wood.
It opens too quickly—as if Eira had been on the other side, just waiting for Anna to find the courage to call. She is a vision straight out of Anna’s memory. The same long gray hair braided over her shoulder, the same age lining her face. Eira smiles, soft and warm andfamiliar. “Hello again, Child.”
Tears burn Anna’s eyes, unexpected but welcome. Her lips curve, an answering smile brimming with fondness. “Am I still a child, Eira? Have I not grown?” A question, a hope for validation, wrapped in a joke.
Eira’s eyes drink her in, her time-worn hands reaching up and cupping Anna’s cheeks. Her palms are still lined with calluses, still warm and still merciful. “I see the way time has changed you,” she says, “And I see the way your heart has remained the same.” She leans closer, a breath apart. “You have grown into someone to be proud of.”
Anna’s throat goes tight, the heart in her chest aching withremembrance and fulfillment. She wasn’t sure, until that moment, that Eira’s approval was still something she craved. Some deep corner of her heart, still injured by being left behind, never stopped whispering that she wasn’t worth taking. “Thank you,” she breathes.
